Screen shot program fosters cross-globe collaboration

Although an ocean divides teams of CMS researchers, the CMS collaboration has worked to make researchers forget about that distance.

"If you want to find out what is happening with an experiment, you go to the control room," said Erik Gottschalk, head of the LHC Remote Operations Center at Fermilab. "To work with someone at CERN, it helps to see what they are looking at."

But firewalls at some laboratories prevent network sharing, and commercial screen sharing systems require a timely program download and visual delays of up to two minutes. Letting collaborators view the same control room data screens almost instantly from laboratories in America, Europe, Asia and even from home, became a priority for CD's Kurt Biery.

With the help of Kaori Maeshima, who works on CMS and CDF, Biery got around both problems with a new screen snapshot program that captures images of data and detector monitors and publishes the images on outside Web servers. Images broadcast in 5 or 60 second increments. Safeguards prevent outside viewers from changing data on the
screens.

"It is a very handy, safe way for collaborators around the world to see what
we are doing and to help us with our problems," said J.J. Schmidt, CDF
operations manager. "It's a great tool when training graduate students. Rather than having
them try and describe the problem, both look at the same screen in the control room."

CDF simultaneously posts screen captures from all 20 control room screens. CMS has been experimenting with the system and will share data among all three of its control rooms.

The screen captures don't require additional programming from control room
staff as a read-only system would. Eventually, Biery wants to add user tools such as the
ability to search archived screens or freeze images for longer viewing. Ideally, collaborators could review the last eight hours of remote operation during meetings.

"We could look at it and discuss it, that bridges the gap that way," Gottschalk said.

--Tona Kunz

Milestone

Tevatron tops record luminosity

The plot depicts the steady increase of weekly integrated luminosity over the last seven years. Last week's record-breaking integrated luminosity reached 48 inverse picobarns.

Last week was another good week for the Tevatron, which set a record for integrated luminosity. The March 24-30 record was 48 inverse picobarns, higher than the record of 46.5 inverse picobarns set during the week of March 10.

From symmetrybreaking

Mariah Carey vs. Einstein

On April 15, pop star Mariah Carey will release her new album, E=MC2. Here is a quick look at how Carey compares to the master of E=MC2, Albert Einstein.

Carey: Publishes E=MC2 at age 38.Einstein: Wrote E=MC2 in 1905, when he was 26 years old.

Carey: E=MC2 stands for: Emancipation equals Mariah Carey to the second power. (The Emancipation of Mimi was the title of Carey's comeback album in 2005.)Einstein: E=MC2stands for: Energy is equivalent to mass. The speed of light squared tells us exactly how much energy a given amount of Einstein action figuremass represents.

Carey: Said on MTV that creating the perfume [M by Mariah Carey] and working on her album influenced each other.Einstein: Said that God does not play dice.

The next big thing?

Scott Dodelson, acting head of the Center for Particle Astrophysics, wrote today's column.

Scott Dodelson

One of the great success stories in science over the last 20 years is the progress that teams of astronomers and particle physicists have made in extracting information about fundamental physics through a wide variety of astronomical observations. These observations include: spectra of galaxies, counts of galaxies, supernovae, atmospheric and solar neutrinos, spectra of quasars, cosmic microwave background, galaxy shapes, and high-energy cosmic rays. They all have taught us a lot about the fundamental laws of physics that govern the evolution of the universe.

What's next?

Here's one guess: A map of the universe using light with a wavelength of 21 cm, invisible to the human eye. This map would provide a census of the most abundant element in the universe: hydrogen. The 21-cm light--part of the radio spectrum--emerges when an excited state of atomic hydrogen decays to its ground state.

This would not be an ordinary, 2-dimensional map of the sky. Due to the redshift of light emitted from distant regions of space that are moving away from us, this map would give us information about regions of space at various distances and times. For example, radiation corresponding to this transition in hydrogen emitted from a region of space a billion light years away arrives with a wavelength of 22.5 instead of 21 cm. By measuring at wavelengths of 21 cm and up, we can generate snapshots of the universe at many different periods.

Contrast this with the static map of cosmic microwave background, which shows the universe when it was 400,000 years old. Measurements of the CMB have garnered two Nobel Prizes and pinned down important cosmological parameters, yet it is a snapshot of the universe at only a single instant. Imagine the power of a survey that shows the universe at various times!

About a half-dozen efforts to explore this idea are currently underway, including a study group here at Fermilab. We have submitted to DOE a proposal to map hydrogen at redshifts of 0.5-2.

If these R&D efforts succeed, we will learn about dark energy from the redshift 0.5-2 maps; about the end of the Dark Ages at redshifts of 6-12; and the primordial perturbations - the very seeds of our creation right after the big bang - by going to even higher redshift.

This could be the next big thing.

Safety Update

ES&H weekly report, April 1

This week's safety report, compiled by the Fermilab ES&H section, shows that
a minor injury in February 2008 was upgraded from non-reportable to
reportable. This increases the total number of reportable cases in FY08 to
seven. There were no injuries reported last week. Fermilab has worked 21
days without recordable injury. The full report is available here.

Blood Drive April 22, 23
Mark your calendars. Heartland Blood Centers will conduct a Fermilab Blood Drive on April 22 and 23 from 8 a.m to 2 p.m. in the
Wilson Hall Ground Floor NE Training Room. Appointments can be scheduled on
the Web or by calling Diana at x3771 or Margie at
x5680. More information can be found here.

NALWO lunch April 9
The next NALWO luncheon is Wednesday, April 9, at noon at Chez Leon. This is a chance to meet other laboratory women, network or just relax over a meal. The cost is $12. Anyone interested can RSVP by Sunday, April 4, to Marjorie Appel via e-mail or by phone at (630) 293-9349.

SciTech summer camps
The SciTech Hands-on Museum offers Science Adventure Camps for children
age 6-8 and age 9+. Week-long camps begin on June 23 and run from 9 a.m.
to 3 p.m. Fees range from $200 to $225 per week. Before- and after-care is available for an extra fee. For more information, visit the SciTech Web site.

Standard mileage reimbursement rate
The Internal Revenue Service and the General Services Administration have
issued the 2008 standard mileage reimbursement rates as 50.5 cents per
mile, effective March 19, 2008.

Going to CERN?
Take your camera! Have your photos featured in the Fermilab Remote
Operations Center online gallery. Contact Elizabeth Clements
for details.